MICHÈLE MORGAN

(29 February 1929 - 20 December 2016)

Michèle Morgan was a great beauty and a natural asset to the cinema. She began her film career in 1936 in France in small or uncredited roles and was discovered by director Marc Allegret for Heart of Paris. Shortly afterwards, Marcel Carné put her in Quai des brumes with Jean Gabin and Michel Simon, a classic of its kind and one of Morgan’s best films. She worked again with Gabin as well as Raimu, Boyer, Vanel, Renaud, etc, before moving to the US and an RKO contract beginning with Joan of Paris. Apart from her continental exoticism the studio didn’t know what to do with her. She appeared with Sinatra in Higher and Higher but RKO wouldn’t release her to Warner Bros for Casablanca. However, she did get to play opposite Bogart in Passage to Marseille. In Carol Reed’s The Fallen Idol, made in London, she had a good role as Ralph Richardson’s secret lover. After more forgettable parts she eventually returned to France where she made Guitry’s Napoleon, Clair’s Summer Manoeuvres, André Cayatte’s Le miroir à deux faces and Chabrol’s Bluebeard. She retired in 1999. Morgan had three husbands: William Marshall, Henri Vidal and Gérard Oury, all actors, as was her only son, Mike Marshall. 

MICHAEL DARVELL